Personally, I find these new chip cards and readers to be frustrating. Not only do we waste time by first swiping, then inserting, but once inserted, it takes up to 10-20 seconds for the transaction to go through. If you pull the card out too early, you have to go through the whole rigmarole again.

I bet that, soon, they will have to upgrade the readers so it doesn’t take this long. Retailers will, again, be waiting for the second round of updates. Until then, instead of a 1 second swipe, it will be a long chip verification process, with a line of frustrated customers behind you.

Fun, fun.

Chances are, you’re one of the millions of Americans who has received a new credit or debit card in the mail in the last few months (if not, you will soon!). It looks identical to your old card, but with one exception: it has a small chip on the front. These new cards are supposed to make transactions safer, but right now, many retailers aren’t equipped to accept them. The result is longer lines at the check-out counter as confused customers fumble with whether to use the chip or swipe their card as usual. So why we do we have cards that retailers can’t accept?